after he had achieved his reputation, he sought means, outside the domain
of science, to make himself talked about and found these in the display
partly of odd tastes, such as that for eating Spiders and caterpillars, and
partly of atheistical opinions.--Translator's Note.) Try merely to convince
her that the caterpillar of a Butterfly is as good to eat as the
caterpillar of a Moth. You will not succeed. But, if you substitute for her
underground larva, which I suppose to be grey, another underground larva
striped with black, yellow, rusty-red or any other tint, this change of
coloration will not prevent her from recognizing, in the substituted dish,
a victim to her liking, an equivalent of her Grey Worm.

So with the rest, so far as I have been able to experiment with them. Each
obstinately refuses what is alien to her hunting-preserves, each accepts
whatever belongs to them, always provided that the game substituted is much
the same in size and development as that whereof the owner has been
deprived. Thus the Tarsal Tachytes, an appreciative epicure of tender
flesh, would not consent to replace her pinch of young Acridian-grubs with
the one big Locust that forms the food of Panzer's Tachytes; and the
latter, in her turn, would never exchange her adult Acridian for the
other's menu of small fry. The genus and the species are the same, but the
age differs; and this is enough to decide the question of acceptance or
refusal.

When its depredations cover a somewhat extensive group, how does the insect
manage to recognize the genera, the species composing her allotted portion
and to distinguish them from the rest with an assured vision which the
inventory of her burrows proves never to be at fault? Is it the general
appearance that guides her? No, for in some Bembex-burrows we shall find
Sphaerophoriae, those slender, thong-like creatures, and Bombylii, looking
like velvet pincushions; no again, for in the pits of the Silky Ammophila